Patricia Heaton couldn’t say ‘tradition’.
They were playing a family board game, just before the pandemic, and the 68-year-old actress, known for ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and ‘The Middle’, kept stumbling over her words in front of her children and their friends. It was her youngest son, Daniel, who said it bluntly: ‘Good job, Mom. You can’t even talk.’ She told the story herself. She was completely mortified.
Heaton had been quietly asking for help to quit the wine that, without realizing it, had become part of her daily routine. One glass while cooking, another with dinner, another in front of the television. She took Daniel’s remark as a sign she couldn’t ignore.
Today, she has been sober for eight years. And together with her husband David, she turned that story into Solubrae, her own line of non-alcoholic wines, made so that other families can raise a toast without carrying what she carried.
